Slade plays down play-off talk

Leyton Orient manager Russell Slade is refusing to set his sights on the play-offs despite watching his side move closer to a top-six place after beating Carlisle 4-1 at Brisbane Road.

The O's enjoyed a four-goal romp for the second time this season against the Cumbrians having also won 4-1 at Brunton Park in November.

On this occasion goals from Romain Vincelot, Shaun Batt, Dean Cox and a Kevin Lisbie penalty earned Orient the points over a Carlisle side that finished with 10 men after goalkeeper Mark Gillespie was dismissed in the second-half for a second bookable offence.

"I don't want to talk about Wembley and the play-offs," Slade said. "My task is to win as many games as we possibly can between now and the end of the season.

"It's been a perfect week for us with two wins and it's fantastic. There are still seven games to go and we keep working hard every single game. It was a difficult surface for both teams, but we did our best and the most important thing is that we got a positive result.

"We had a bit of a patched-up squad again, but things worked well for us. We are looking a bit more ruthless at the minute and that's encouraging.

"Coxy has got a goal and he hadn't scored for a bit, Lis keeps going, he's scored again. We know Romain is capable of goals from midfield and he opened his account for us and Shaun got his second goal in a week.

"So yes, lots of positives, but I was disappointed that we didn't keep a clean sheet. We had the ball, but gave it away and conceded the goal. That's upset the group, but it shows how far we've come in many ways in terms of mental strength as much as anything else."

Carlisle boss Greg Abbott said his side could not match their display levels in their previous two matches, and he said: "We are full of disappointment. In our two previous games, we put in an unbelievable amount of effort, energy and work and when you do that, you probably get the little bits of luck and decisions during a game that go your way.

"We found it hard to reproduce that and the key incidents and important decisions went against us at really poor times in the game and put us in a position where we couldn't recover from that."